


Time Well Spent

by Emily Waters (missparker)



Category: American Actor RPF, Canadian Actor RPF, Stargate SG-1 RPF
Genre: 5 Things, F/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-23
Updated: 2012-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missparker/pseuds/Emily%20Waters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Amanda spends with Rick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Well Spent

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for no other reason than Angie asked for it. RPF is what it is and if you don't like it, please feel free to send me a 15 page e-mail about how you think I'm probably a terrible person and have no moral standards. But anything less than 15 pages, I won't read.

5.

Amanda hasn’t been married all that long. It’s a bizarre thought she has while reading the new script. It’s not like she hasn’t had to kiss other men who aren’t her husband on screen before, but she’s never had to kiss a man like this. She looks over at Alan, sprawled across the couch watching hockey. Their place is tiny and she’s beginning to feel kind of claustrophobic.

“Do you mind if I take the car?” she asks. He looks up; shrugs.

“No,” he says. “I can shut this off, baby.”

“No need,” she says dumping her script into her big bag. “I’m just going to get some tea or something.”

He lets her go without an argument. He’s very trusting, knows that Amanda is self-aware enough to know what she needs to do her work.

Amanda doesn’t mention the kiss before she leaves and she doesn’t bring it up when she comes home, her lines all highlighted; her notes littering the margins. The locker room scene only has one word written in the margin.

_Rick_

The show may not even work. This time next year, this could all be a very distant memory, this little house rented to another couple, the two of them back in Toronto like Alan wants but won’t say.

Amanda arrives on set early on rehearsal day, nerves having kept her up all night. She gives herself a silent talking to on the drive over about professionalism, Alan silent behind the wheel. If he notices she is quietly berating herself, he does not mention it.

At work, after coffee, she finds Rick leaning outside her trailer with a smug little smirk.

“I guess we ought to give this the old college try?”

She would say that she is closer, at this point, to Michael and Christopher, but it’s Rick she looks forward to seeing every day. He is charming and handsome and not hard to talk to. He makes her laugh. He doesn’t treat her as less than even thought he’s the only one she wouldn’t blame if he did.

“I don’t think the locker room set is finished,” she replies which is so, so lame and she hates herself.

“We can work around that,” he says and walks into her trailer. She follows - what choice does she have?

It isn’t a flimsy excuse, though. It’s an actual rehearsal and they spend time blocking and choreographing the scene and by the time it’s time to kiss, she feels comfortable and professional. She grabs him, spins him, and crushes her mouth to his.

It’s the stopping they forget.

He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t stop her and sputter “Carter!” She thinks he’s going to but his hands hold her face and god, his tongue is spicy and hot and they kiss for long enough that it stops being rehearsing and starts just being wrong.

She stares at him when they break apart and he wipes his mouth with his hand.

“Well,” he says. “I would have lost that bet.”

He doesn’t explain what he means.

On set, they break apart when they’re supposed to.

At home, she says, “I had to kiss Richard Dean Anderson today.”

And Alan says, “You poor, tortured thing.”

So that’s that, then.

 

4.

Alan is working all the time now, partly out of town, and the network sends a car for her in the mornings so it doesn’t matter. Season two perks. She should buy a damn car, though. She likes driving, she really does.

So when Rick needs a last minute ride to the airport after work one day, she says, “I’ll do it if we can take your car.”

They have a flirty, fun relationship and her waggles his brows.

“Agreed,” he drawls. “You gonna pick me up when I come back, too?”

“Maybe,” she says. She will though, gets fluttery inside at the very prospect.

He drives a truck, more like Jack O’Neill than not sometimes. It looks like it could be a junker but inside it’s too nice, too quiet. It’s been a while since she’s driven something so big but she gamely hefts herself into the cab. It’s not long, the drive. Rick thanks her, glad to not have to pay for parking. He tells her to use the truck while he’s gone. It makes her feel special.

They don’t spend a lot of time alone and this is rare, feels like a gift or a holiday. They’ve never talked about that kiss or their undeniable chemistry but clearly other’s have noticed the latter because they have more and more scenes together with that longing tone written right into the script.

The longing is not hard to play at all.

“I’ll miss you,” she blurts as they pull up to the terminal. It’s stupid; she regrets saying it immediately and wishes she didn’t need him to like her so badly. But he looks pleased enough.

“Yeah?” he says. She nods, not trusting her words. “Well, it’s just a weekend.”

She nods again. He opens his door and pauses before getting out. “So long, beauty queen.”

She spends most of the weekend at home and Alan comes home Saturday night and won’t leave again until Monday so she’s not bored or anything.

But she does get a thrill every time she walks by the front window and sees that truck in her drive. It feels like hiding a secret in plain sight.

 

3.

One more season under their belt. Amanda is proud of the work they have done. There’s a party to celebrate finishing the primary shooting and they’re supposed to go from the studio to the hotel where it’s being held. Michael and Christopher are finished filming before she and Rick are and so they go home and change, but as the evening wears on, Amanda realizes that they’re going to have to go straight from work. She would have liked to shower this stage make-up off and put on something nicer, but there’s clothes in wardrobe she can borrow, if she has too.

It’s raining outside as it has been all day and she feels cozy and content in her trailer as she pulls on the filched clothes. Black pants and a sweater - Sam is a woman, surely, but a fashion guru she isn’t. The wardrobe people will know what she’s done but they won’t snitch on her, she thinks.

She’s lulled onto the little love seat by the pinging rain and is mustering her courage to sprint to her car when there’s a knock and Rick pokes his head in, flippantly disregarding any sense of privacy as usual.

“I thought I saw your light on,” he says, and climbs inside.

“Is everyone else gone?” she asks.

“Just about,” he says and flops down next to her. “Am I a bad guy if I just wanna go home?”

“I’m tired, too,” she says. “But we should go.”

“We’re going,” he says.

“When does your flight leave?” she asks.

“Tomorrow,” he says. He doesn’t get any more specific than that and she doesn’t press. They sit for a few more minutes and then finally he stands. “Come on.”

He follows her to her car. He doesn’t ask for a ride but she wants to give him one and she smiles when he gets into the passenger’s side. He touches the dash in front of him and runs a finger along the leather seat beneath him.

“Nice Volvo,” he says.

“It’s safe and practical,” she says.

“For if you have kids,” he finishes, though she didn’t say it.

“It’s fast, too,” she offers. “For if we don’t.”

This gets a smile out of him. But she doesn’t drive fast. She drives languidly, staying in the right hand lane and flirting with the speed limit, stopping for yellow lights and flicking her windshield wipers on and off and on. The radio is on low enough that she car hear him humming along. She likes that he isn’t shy with her, that he never seems to hold himself back.

When she turns into the parking lot, the only empty spaces are far from the hotel entrance. They’ll have to make a dash and will probably still walk in damp and late. She turns the engine off, but doesn’t turn the key enough that everything goes dark. The lights of the dashboard glow dimly and the inside of the car is steamy and warm.

She doesn’t know why she turns to him, why she looks at his mouth, why she leans in a little - just a touch. But it must be enough of an invitation because he meets her more than half way, his lips warm and dry against hers. She exhales into the kiss through her nose and when he nudges her mouth open with his bottom lip, she sighs.

They break apart.

She wants to tell him that in her head, she lives this other, parallel life. That she is fun and carefree, that she goes out at nights and lives in a little apartment that she pays too much for because it’s furnished with nothing that she owns. That she laughs freely, that she wears high heels to the grocery store, that she spends nights under Rick and late mornings sprawled naked in his bed, sleeping off the delicious ache of the night before. But before she can even decide how to begin to share with him something like that, he says, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I know,” she agrees quickly, though she doesn’t.

“I just...”

“It’s all right.”

“You’re so pretty,” he says. “I just don’t know how you go through your life like this. How more people don’t kiss you spontaneously.”

“Oh yes,” she says dryly. “Men lined around the block.”

“Amanda-”

“Please,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”

“All right,” he says.

“I...” She bites her lip. “Kissing is okay, kissing happens because of work, but still, Alan doesn’t need to know.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Not my first time at the rodeo, honey,” he says and opens the door. The rain is pouring. They arrive to the party wet and late and she makes sure not to stand by him for the rest of the night.

 

2.

Amanda goes in with the crew on the goodbye gift which is like, a really nice pen or something, she doesn’t care. There isn’t a thing that they can give him that will encapsulate the last eight years.

She wants to get him her own gift but she can’t decide what and as his last day draws near, she starts to panic.

That’s why the night before his last day on set, he finds her sitting in her car - in her _husband’s_ car - in front of his little rental house.

“It’s all boxes,” he says when she rolls down the window to talk to him. “But you can come on in.”

She doesn’t apologize for showing up unannounced. It’s been eight years - she doesn’t apologize for much any more. She opens the door and holds her sweater more tightly around her body as she follows him inside.

It’s mostly boxes, taped up and labeled for the movers. There’s still furniture, though, and the TV looks like it hasn’t been touched. They wind their way into the kitchen. On the counter is a little dish rack full of plates and cups and cutlery, but everything else is already gone.

She feels her bottom lip start to tremble. It’s just a matter of time before the rest of her face starts to fall.

“Hey,” he says. “No.”

“It’s just...”

“I’m not _dying_ ,” he says. She takes a deep, watery breath. “I’m tired. I said it wasn't gonna be _MacGyver_ all over again and then it was an extra year.”

“I know,” she says. She understands, logically, why he’s doing this but it feels like he’s leaving her behind. Sometimes she feels like all she wants to do is grab onto the closest warm body, it’s just - that body is always Rick. She can’t seem to separate the two, anymore. What is she going to hold onto now?

“Just a phone call away,” he says. She steps closer to him and when he doesn’t move away, presses into his arms. “Do you want to stay for a while?” he asks.

It’s why she came. She’s spent eight years carefully not staying too long, but now she wordlessly trails him down the hall and into the bedroom. More boxes, some suitcases, an unmade bed.

“You say stop and we stop,” he says.

“I won’t want to stop,” she promises, shrugging out of her sweater. His eyes flick down to her midsection, the little bump that they’ve been filming around for the last couple weeks. It’s small but it’s there and it occurs to her that perhaps he won’t want her, like this. “If you don’t...”

“I do,” he says. “But things are different now, I understand that.”

“Not so different,” she promises.

They sit on the edge of the bed and lean in. The kissing is easy and familiar and done enough over the years. He tastes like Rick, he tastes like Jack. She remembers kissing him while filming _Grace_ and how everyone had stood around and watched them, how Peter had been directing that week and had said, softly, “Can you do it again for me?”

They’d kissed for over an hour.

He kisses her now the same way - a hand on her face and no sense of urgency. Like they have all the time in the world. Like morning will never come.

He helps her out of her clothes. She’s tender and sore and impatient.

“My hormones,” she laughs. “I mean, it seems like an excuse that all women use, but I’m horny all the time, it’s crazy.”

“My gain,” he says simply. He undoes the clasp on her bra and takes it off her. It’s too small now and has left red marks in her skin.

They lie down on the bed, skin to skin. She likes his unhurried approach, likes how it seems to take forever for him to slide into her, how he sets a slow and easy pace. She touches his skin all over, smells his neck and his shoulder, rubs her forehead against his chest as they cool down.

He reaches out to touch her belly when she finally rolls off of him and onto her back. His hand ghosts over her skin, the slight swell that has never been there before. His hand is warm and a little sticky.

“I hope they’re friends,” he says. “Wylie, I mean. And what you’ve got cooking in there.”

“I’m sure they will be,” she says. She needs to think about going home, she’s already distracted by the heartache tomorrow will bring. “Do you think it will be harder for Sam and Jack or for Amanda and Rick?” she asks.

He gets a strange expression and sits up, touching his feet to the floor.

“We’re not them,” he says and starts searching for his shorts.

“I know,” she says.

She looks for her underwear, too.

 

1.

He won’t do the con, but he’s not so far away that she doesn’t want to see him. It’s easy to rent a car with a GPS that tells her exactly how to get to him.

She has never been to his house before. It feels both funny and strange.

She has to go through a gate to get into the neighborhood. When she tells the guard who she is and who she’s coming to see, he gets a huge grin and says, “Big fan.”

It just makes her more nervous. She hasn’t seen him in a while and they’re not young anymore. She’s on a new show, he’s not doing much but growing old and fat and jolly. She parks in his driveway next to his SUV and grabs the bottle of wine that Robin had picked out “for MacGyver.” He’s more knowledgeable about all types of booze than she is.

Wylie answers the door.

“Oh my god!” Amanda says. “Look at how tall you are!”

Wylie rolls her eyes, which is fair, but gives her a hug.

“Dad’s in the kitchen,” she says. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving.”

“Leaving!” she says, hiding her relief. “No! Why?”

“Sleepover,” she says. “Some of us have lives.” She yells the last part and Amanda knows it’s for Rick.

“He’s still saying he’s retired?” Amanda stage whispers.

“He like, wants to learn how to use the computer. It’s miserable,” Wylie says. “It’s like trying to teach a cat to speak Chinese. Like, what even is the point?”

Amanda laughs and gathers Wylie into her arms, hugs her tight.

“She’s a hilarious, evil child,” Rick says. Amanda looks up to see him in the archway between the kitchen and the living room.

“I wonder where she gets it,” Amanda says. She lets Wylie go and gives Rick a hug, brief but real. Outside a horn honks.

“That’s me, daddy,” Wylie says, picking up her back pack. “Bye.”

“Bye, kiddo,” Rick says. Amanda waves.

Alone, they hug again for longer.

“You look like a stranger,” he says. “A dark, beautiful stranger.”

“I’m British now, too,” she says, slipping into Helen’s light, airy accent.

“None of that now,” he says. “Come on, I’m making us dinner.”

It’s an easy visit. She talks about the con, the fans, the new show, how hard it was to slip away for a few hours. How the new show has a lot of familiar faces but feels a lot more and a lot less serious, depending on the day. How tired she is all the time, how she’s never home, how Olivia is just growing and growing and growing more beautiful every day.

“I got the school picture you sent,” he says, waving toward the fridge. It’s on there. She smiles. “She’s kind of your clone.”

“Kind of,” Amanda says, sipping her wine. They’ve had almost the whole bottle between them.

“Well, before,” he says. “Now...” He trails off, looking her over. “It’s almost right.”

“You hate it,” Amanda says.

“No,” he says. “I just hope that you’re still in there somewhere. Are you in there? Is she?”

Amanda looks out the window at the ocean crashing on the rocks below. It’s hard not to be angry at the question, hard not to remember how he’d thrown it in her face once. _We’re not them._ She didn’t come here today to sleep with him and she won’t but it doesn’t do to pretend she doesn’t still feel that tug, that longing, exquisite tug.

“I’m here,” she says. “Sam’s here.”

He breathes out.

“Oh, come on,” she says. “You and I have never been as complicated as all of this.”

“Amanda,” he says sounding a little pained. “You are the most complicated person in my life. You are... you are you.”

“The one that got away?” she asks, trying to backpedal a bit.

“The one I could never have,” he says.

“You had me once,” she says.

“Even then,” he shakes his head. “Even then I knew it was a gift. You were saying goodbye, weren’t you?”

“Maybe,” she says.

He stands up to put their dishes in the sink and she turns again to watch the last of the sun sink into the ocean.


End file.
